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HAPPY ANNIVE
CONTAINERISATI
At dAWN ON 23
JuNE 1971 PORtS Of
AuCKLANd mAdE
HIStORy AS tHE
fIRSt NEW ZEALANd
PORt tO HOSt A
CONtAINERSHIP. ON
tHAt dAy fORty yEARS
AGO, tHE AdVENt Of
CONtAINERISAtION IN
NZ WOuLd CHANGE
tHE fACE Of NZ
PORtS ANd SHIPPING
fOREVER ANd OPEN
tHE dOOR tO GLOBAL
COmPEtItIVENESS fOR
NZ ExPORtS.
SEPTEMBER 2011
The pioneer was Hamburg Sud, the
established german-owned line that
introduced containerisation to NZ under
its Columbus Line brand. In June this year
Hamburg Sud joined with Ports of Auckland
(POAL) in celebrating the 40th anniversary
of the arrival in Auckland of Columbus
new Zealand on 23 June 1971. The first in a
long line of distinctively red hulled vessels
that plied the NZ trade, the Columbus
new Zealand was the first cellular container
ship to come to NZ.
It wasn’t however Hamburg Sud’s first
appearance in NZ where the Line had been
operating conventional shipping services to
west Coast North America (wCNA) since 1961.
“2011 therefore marks a double celebration for
us – 40 years of running container services
into NZ and 50 years as a Company in NZ”,
Hamburg Sud NZ General Manager Commercial,
Simon Edwards, told guests at a joint Ports of
Auckland/Hamburg Sud anniversary celebration
in Auckland recently.
The 1,187 TEU Columbus New Zealand was one
of three sisterships with Columbus America and
Columbus Australia that Hamburg Sud had built
specifically to meet the requirements of the
NZ Meat Producer Board. with its 758 reefer
capacity and an elaborate cooling system, the
Columbus New Zealand’s pioneering service was
from Auckland to East Coast North America
(ECNA). within a short time the service, with its
primary meat customers, gained the additional
support of the NZ dairy Board for its North
American shipments. Two years later in 1973
Hamburg Sud also containerised its wCNA
service.
Since then POAL and Hamburg Sud have
maintained a close working relationship in
which both companies have advanced and
expanded. For Hamburg Sud, both the size of
vessels and the number and frequency of its
container services has increased considerably.
Hamburg Sud vessels calling NZ ports today
are in the 3,500-3,700 TEU range operating
services between NZ, North America, North and
South Asia and the Pacific Islands. At POAL the
advances since 1971 are epic: from one twin-lift
portainer crane that (with the help of the ship’s
deck-mounted crane) took one and a half days
to unload 174 containers from Columbus New
Zealand and to load 168 export containers,
POAL today would complete an exchange on the
same vessel in just six hours using just two of its
eight hi-tech cranes.
Today Hamburg Sud operates 40 container
liner services around the world where it
deploys over 100 container ships and owns
400,000 containers. The largest vessels in its
containership fleet are now over 7,000 TEU.
Today Ports of Auckland handles some 900,000
TEU each year which accounts for 85% of all
the cargo handled at the port.